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At the rate global semiconductor heavyweights are winning exemptions under Trump’s newly proposed 100 percent sectoral tariffs on silicon chips, the list of companies that actually face these punitive levies is likely to be rather small. Case in point: South Korea has just announced the tariff-exempted status of its semiconductor heavyweights, Samsung and SK Hynix.
As we noted in an earlier post, President Trump unveiled punitive sectoral tariffs for the semiconductor sphere earlier today, but removed the levy’s bite by exempting companies that are either already building or have committed to building chip manufacturing facilities in the US.
A short while later, President Trump confirmed the levy-exempted status of NVIDIA and Apple, courtesy of their mammoth investments in the US.
In fact, just today, Apple announced that it would invest $600 billion in the US over the next 4 years to build an end-to-end supply chain in the US, covering every stage of its labyrinthine manufacturing process, ranging from initial silicon wafers to the final packaged component ready for use in iPhones, Macs, and other Apple products. Apple will rope in the US-based facilities of GlobalWafers America, TSMC, Texas Instruments, and Applied Materials in this endeavor.
This brings us to the core topic. South Korea has just announced that its silicon heavyweights, Samsung and SK Hynix, will remain exempt from Trump’s new semiconductor-focused sectoral tariffs.
Do note that Samsung has committed to investing $45 billion in the US to build two chip fabrication plants, an R&D center, and a packaging facility by 2030.
Similarly, SK Hynix is investing $3.87 billion in West Lafayette, Indiana, to build a memory packaging plant for AI products and an advanced packaging fabrication and R&D facility.
Of course, given the huge qualifier attached with Trump’s semiconductor tariffs, it appears only companies like SMIC, UMC, and Rapidus will face these punitive levies as they do not have any material manufacturing footprint in the US.
Update: TSMC is also exempted.
